Staying in mountain huts, twelve Club members undertook a guided glacier trekking adventure in the Swiss Alps in the Summer of 2025. As Britain basked in a heatwave, it felt strange, at the end of June, to be packing for cold and heading to the airport with ice axes and crampons.
Editor’s note: This is the story as told by one of the party members, Tom Morris, after joining gwentmc, of a guided glacier trekking adventure in the Swiss Alps in the Summer of 2025. The team of twelve consisted of people with varying experience — some Club members who’d previously visited the Alps and many who were ready to take the step from British to Alpine mountaineering for the first time, and three guides. A trip to Aviemore in February had served as training for snowy Alpine conditions. Follow-on training, preparation and new kit ensured everyone was ready as they headed to the airport. Fellow Club members, Jan Hall and Jonathan Singleton took the photographs.
The Long Hot Friday (Day 1)
Us Welsh were unaccustomed to Switzerland’s brilliant public transport, or maybe it was the lack of sleep from a very early start? A fellow passenger narrowly avoided a decapitation from Dai’s suitcase, saved only by his quick reflexes on the stairs.
We arrived in Grindelwald on Saturday to find it extremely hot. After checking-in to the Hotel Residence we met with our three guides Graham, Pierre and David. They talked us through the itinerary and joined us for a three-course meal at the Hotel Derbhof.
At 10pm with no kip the night before and an early morning to follow, sleep was a priority, but still the sweltering heat meant the land of Nod remained a million miles away.
Thunder in the Valley (Day 2)
Sunday was to be a test-run; a gear check and a via ferrata climb up the Klettersteig Schwarzhorn. With it being hot already by 9am, we were offered no reprieve from the heat as the cable car carried us up to 2166m above sea level at Grindelwald First. From the cable car we walked up the valley. Some blisters had set in by the time we were roping up for the iron cables.
Being roped together can be irritating, but it was good for us to learn how it feels to be pushed and pulled. At the summit we ate lunch, then it was a long walk back down to catch the last cable car, another dinner at the Derbhof, then bedtime for another early start.
A ferocious thunderstorm disturbed our sleep that night. The stifling heat gave way to cracks, booms and torrential downpour. The sound was terrifying; if it’s that bad down in the valley, who knows what it might be like in the mountains?
Into Thin Air (Day 3)
Grindelwald, at over 1000m above sea level, is situated higher than Pen-y-Fan, although you’d hardly notice. Up Schwarzhorn (2928m) the sun was more intense but it felt cooler. Combined with our focus on climbing the day before, many of the party had got burnt without noticing.
Rising to 3400m, we felt the air thinning on the train that is the Victorian-era engineering feat up to the Jungfraujoch. We had to breathe very carefully as we set off across the glacier.
The walk between the railway and the Mönch hut (3657m) was easy enough. We practiced walking roped-together. As we got further away from safety, a new storm began to approach. There followed a mad dash up to the small hut to check-in quickly, leaving us all breathing heavily, and huddled inside for the rest of the day.
526 Steps (Day 4)
Head pounding from the altitude, I lay awake all Monday night. When morning finally came, comrades commiserated but there was nothing anyone could do. Descent would be the only option.
There was concern about a another possible storm, but Graham made the call to continue at pace. It was well-judged, as the storm didn’t arrive until we’d made it to our next destination. Pierre had promised this would be a “five-star luxury hotel.”
We broke away from the tourist area, equipped our crampons, and roped together in groups of five with a guide at the front of each rope. Here, out on the glacier are deep crevices, where water trickles through the ice, causing shouts down the line of “Crack!”
Eventually, we reached solid rock and the last half-hour was climbing the steps to the Konkordia hut (2850m). Not very long ago, the hut sat just a few metres above the glacier. But today, climate warming has melted the glacier and it’s retreated more than 150 metres, necessitating a brutally long staircase climb at the end of our day’s journey. Everyone who attempted to count the steps lost count; Graham told us the truth — there are 526 steps.
On the Konkordia decking, clothes lines run across and there is a view of the helicopter pad. Socks blew away as the delivery chopper came in to land. We toasted with beers out on the decking and, as the storm arrived, ate rosti and cake in the spacious dining area. Lightning crested the valley, but we were safe and dry.
Ups and Downs (Day 5)
The next day, after climbing down the 526 steps, we walked along boulders, then ice, then up the glacier and onto the col1. We equipped crampons as we climbed higher. At this height some of us got altitude headaches again, but we didn’t stay high for long.
The descent from the col was rapid, before hitting a dry glacier with significant crevasses. It was then up further without crampons for a scramble to the Finsteraarhorn Hut (3048m).
The ‘Finster’ was heaven. We had separate beds and proper running water! The toilets work on a long-drop system, with a conveyor belt to minimise smells. Pierre remarked that in pre-Internet days, guides would help out in the hut kitchens, and in doing so, network with other guides, swapping information about weather and conditions.
The sun beat down on the decking during the afternoon. We chatted with two Frenchmen. Like us, the Blatten collapse had also disrupted their plans. They were walking the route in the opposite direction to us.
The meals at all the huts were outstanding; perhaps best of all at Finster. Three courses of nutritious, filling, grub; and there was usually enough for seconds, thirds and fourths for everyone.
Alas, Dear Lid (Day 6)
I woke a little late the following morning. Perhaps the Finster hut was a little TOO cosy? In the rush to depart, I didn’t secure my helmet to my pack properly. It pinged off a few minutes after starting the descent and everyone watched it bump its way down the cliff-face. There was nothing we could do. How annoying. I asked if anyone wanted to buy a helmet holder but there were no takers.
And so, on with the day2. We moved across boulders from the Finster hut, down a glacier, up a glacier, across lots of snow. Up another col, where choppers flew through from the valley below to restock the huts, we stopped at a scree slope. Here, Graham offered me his helmet. “It’s one size fits all, so it will fit, unless you have a massive elephant head.” Sure enough, it didn’t fit. “Ah yes, a massive elephant head confirmed.” Fortunately, the small slope was not particularly dangerous, as long as everyone was sensible with their footwork.
The Oberjaarjoch hut sits at 3258m and is of similar size to the Mönch hut. It has a certain charm, and best of all it has a great selection of board games. Alex, David and I played chess, while some of the others got stuck into Swiss Alpine Club Monopoly. The hut wardens kept baking cakes for us to burn all our remaining Swiss cash on.
Stretching out on the balcony while helicopters flew by, one of Dai’s Crocs fell onto the ledge below the hut. Graham, a true trad climber, heroically climbed down to retrieve it.
The Road to El Dorado (Day 7)
Friday was our final day but there was no time to relax. We must hurry to the finale. Buses in the mountain passes are far from regular, so we had to be at Grimsel Hospiz before 11.20am or we’d have to wait there for hours for the next bus. However, the last section to Grimsel could be passed by cable car. However, this only carries eight people at a time and one cable car has to be heading down while the other heads up. Therefore it was necessary for us to split into two groups to make sure the first group had already caught their cable car down and were waiting while the second group got into the cable car to arrive just in time for the bus.
The roped section down from Oberjaarjoch was terrifically fast, and I took a spill at last. Once we hit the dry glacier the rope came off but we stayed on crampons. Here Dai was cursed with a terrible cramp which saw David start to become concerned about timing.
Once we arrived at the edge of the beautiful glacial lake, we developed a faster group of the uninjured. We plowed past the lake and arrived at the Dam, which was covered in solar panels with a via ferrata at one end. Ah, precious flat ground- at last!
We caught the cable car and enjoyed the ride. Graham and David pointed out the crags we flew over, a multipitch climbing area known as El Dorado. Next time…
Arriving at the Grimsel Hospiz, where the choppers were flying supplies up the huts from, we could see the bus coming up the mountain road. We deployed bus-delaying tactics; Sian negotiated with the driver and I stood in front of it.
Meanwhile, the second group were literally stuck, as the doors had shut on Courtney’s bag as he got into the cable car. At our end, the driver was getting more anxious; being off-timetable would never do.
They made it. The bus was very full; between us and a second heavily-geared group of Swiss mountaineers. It headed down the gorgeous Grimsel Pass with its winding roads and “TOURIST BATMUM”3 sign.
We changed from bus to train at Meiringen. The train was painfully full. Another bus train from Interlaken to Grindelwald, and then farewell drinks with our Guides. All three were a credit to their profession and it was great getting to know them.
We checked back into the Hotel Residence to relax and re-pack for a bit before another Derbhof dinner and even a round of miniature golf afterwards. There can’t be many courses where the view is as good as it is in Grindelwald.
Finally, to finish an already expensive week; a night in Geneva.
Moral of the tale (Day 8)
On the fourth of four trains to Geneva, we met a fellow passenger heading by bike/train to the Montreux Jazz Festival. She pointed out the hypocrisy of our mission; a group of people with deep love for nature, feeling concerned by the glacier melt, but of course flying out to do the trip and being supplied at the huts by helicopter. The conversation stuck with me for a long time.
Later, Alex and I enjoyed a game of cribbage. It’s a silly game I often enjoy for its own sake. It left us rejuvenated and recharged for whatever the journey threw at us next. I got to thinking, maybe the real reason for our glacier trekking adventure was to re-frame our worldview, to enable us to tackle other challenges in our lives with more purpose.
When we arrived in Geneva, Dai and I shared a very nice hotel room. I told him that Courtney, Jo and I were going swimming in the lake. “Which lake?” he asked.
END.
- The Grünhornlücke (3270m) – a high mountain pass connecting the Aletsch Glacier and the Fiescher Glacier. ↩︎
- Down the Fieschergletscher, crossing the Galmigletscher and ascending Studergletscher to the Oberaarjoch. ↩︎
- A mysterious graffiti tag, often spray-painted, that has appeared at various places in Switzerland, Sardinia, Corsica and Italy since 2014 (approximately). Origin and perpetrator(s) are unknown. ↩︎